Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Today's New York Times headlines include this plainspoken one: G.O.P. Leaders Fight Expansion of Children’s Health Insurance. The Republican leadership is determined to prevent even modest steps to insure five million additional uninsured children... but it seems their members may be breaking ranks. The Senate committee voted 17-4 in favor of the proposal to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 Billion over five years.

You may consider this post a follow-up to USWest's "Sicko" post. Our broken health care system is the biggest crisis facing America today. More than 1 in 6 lack year-round health insurance, and at least 18,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care insurance. The deaths from inadequate care for the millions who have some form of coverage is far higher. Isn't it time we dealt with other threats than just terrorism?

But the Republicans just don't seem to care--all they want is to protect their rich corporate clients and cut taxes for their supporters. In a taste of the battles to come if the Democrats prevail in 2008, Minority Leader Boehner scoffed at the Senate plan as "Hillary Care," even though the plans bear no relation to each other. It appears that the Republican Party is once again adopting a scorched-earth policy against any kind of health care reform just as they did in 1992-93. As a nation, we can't afford to let them win again.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Refusing to re-fund CHIP properly is incredibly short-sighted and will cost us even more money in the long run.

Simple, preventative pediatric care saves money in the long run. Treating repeated ear infections can keep a kid from going deaf. Fixing an absecessed tooth can keep a child from dying of a brain infection, like that boy (Deamonte Driver) in Maryland. I don't want to turn this into Anecdote Central, but I've managed to forget the name of the book I liked so much on this topic.

Leaving aside the moral questions, it doesn't make financial sense. But I guess they do have to make sure the hedge fund managers don't have to pay any more in taxes.